While entry door mats are commonly found at front doors, back doors, inside garage entry doors, and the like of homes and businesses, such mats generally are of a single-component material and often constructed of an abrasive fiber. Persons entering the doors tend to wipe their shoe soles on the mats to thereby attempt to remove all sorts of grime from the shoes. Such untoward material can include mud, dirt, gum, oil, road tar, and various other precipitates that can stay with a shoe sole. As is apparent from the wide scope of debris that thus may be present, some of these materials are not easily removed by simple wiping on a conventional door mat. Additionally, those materials that are removed remain in the mat, and can be picked up by subsequent users and carried inside the door anyway.
In view of the above difficulties and the general inefficiencies of conventional entry door mats, it is apparent that a need is present for an entry mat that can provide significant cleaning of shoe soles before the wearer enters a home, business, or other area to be protected from shoe-borne soil. Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an entry mat that provides for liquid washing of a shoe sole followed by drying with a liquid absorbing fabric material.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an entry mat wherein liquid washing is enhanced by brushes that apply the cleansing liquid.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an entry mat for a three step process of sole cleaning comprising a wiping mat for initial contact, brushes for liquid cleaning, and a tautly retained liquid absorbing material for drying the sole.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent throughout the description thereof which now follows.